leadership

crowdsourcing for accounting practices

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going beyond outsourcing and virtual workers.

by sandi smith, cpa
accountant’s accelerator

the days are long gone when the only way to build your business was by hiring full-time employees. now there are so many more choices. many employees are interested in part-time work. some prefer to work virtually, which frees a company up from being limited to local talent. and then there’s crowdsourcing, a whole new way to tap into talented labor on a project-by-project basis.

crowdsourcing is a special way to outsource a task. with outsourcing, you know exactly who will be doing the task. with crowdsourcing, you don’t; people just show up and contribute. wikipedia calls it “distributed problem-solving.” read more →

partners demand accountability, except….

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except when it affects themselves.

by marc rosenberg
author of how to bring in new partners

partner accountability addresses what is expected of each partner, how partners will be managed so that the expectations are met and what the consequences will be for failure to meet these expectations.

i have interviewed hundreds of partners on partner accountability.  i frequently ask them if they would like the firm to have partner accountability.  the most common response i get, somewhat apocryphal, is:  “yes, i’m all for partner accountability (long pause) as long as it doesn’t affect me!” read more →

the 9 building blocks of a winning vision that the big four have discovered

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learn more about the research findings

and that you can use too.

by august j. aquila and robert j. lees
creating the effective partnership

what should a compelling vision contain?

while we still see some visions that talk about becoming the leading player in a state or region, we are seeing a real recognition that a vision is a lot more than the statement we used to see firms use across accounting and the other professional services firms sectors.

more creating the effective partnership: the politics of an accounting firm partnership  |  nine rules to creating highly effective partnership teams   |   audacious vision and grand purpose prove essential to cpa success | are you creating a sustainable firm? | the debilitating effects of denial at accounting firms | the five psychological hurdles that cpa firms must confront today

consider, now, the common ideas from the visions of the big four firms:

read more →

staff training starts with doing something

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ed mendlowitz, cpa, abv, pfs
author of “the 30:30 training method“

question: thanks for the training memo. although i requested your memo because i know i need help with improving efficiency and the like with my practice, many of your thoughts and ideas i have already thought of but simply did not implement them.

response: i think you hit part of the nail on the head in what you wrote – you’ve had many of the ideas and “simply did not implemented them.” you need to make changes or things stay the same. read more →

the politics of an accounting firm partnership

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how one managing partner learned the hard way.

by august j. aquila and robert j. lees
creating the effective partnership

while many managing partners understand the value of a vision statement to focus their partner team’s energies, too few get it right.

creating the effective partnership: two-volume set
creating the effective partnership

a vision is more than a simple statement. when we talk about having a compelling vision, we don’t mean just a well-crafted vision. we mean the vision with a clear destination, the strategies for getting there (the “how to”), the way progress will be measured and the benefits to the partners of going on the journey.

more on partnership management:  nine rules to creating highly effective partnership teams   |   audacious vision and grand purpose prove essential to cpa success | are you creating a sustainable firm? | the debilitating effects of denial at accounting firms | the five psychological hurdles that cpa firms must confront today

let’s look at an example of what can happen when all the elements (vision, journey, milestones and a positive answer to what’s in it for me) aren’t in place. read more →